Poll: Majority says race relations have gotten worse under Trump

One year after President Donald Trump said there were “some very fine people on both sides” of violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, a majority of voters in a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll say race relations have gotten worse since Trump became president.

According to the poll, 55 percent of voters say race relations have worsened under Trump, compared with 16 percent who say they have gotten better. Another 18 percent say race relations have stayed about the same since Trump became president last year.

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Just over half of white voters, 51 percent, say race relations have worsened under Trump, while larger majorities of African-American voters (79 percent) and Hispanics (60 percent) say they have gotten worse.

Self-identified Democratic voters overwhelmingly say race relations have gotten worse under Trump (82 percent), compared with only 4 percent who say they have gotten better and 9 percent who say they are about the same.

But more Republicans say race relations have gotten better under Trump (35 percent) than say they have gotten worse (25 percent). About three in 10 — 29 percent — say race relations have stayed about the same. (Independents mirror the overall electorate: 13 percent say they have gotten better, 55 percent say have gotten worse and 20 percent say they are about the same.)

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The poll was conducted in the run-up to the one-year anniversary of the unrest in Charlottesville, in which protesters organized by far-right and white-supremacist groups descended on the college town in central Virginia to oppose the planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate war general, from a public park.

Violence erupted between protesters and counterprotesters throughout the weekend. One counterprotester, a 32-year-old woman from Charlottesville, was killed when a 20-year-old man driving a car plowed into a crowd of people and wounded more than a dozen others.

Trump’s initial response to the bloodshed drew widespread condemnation from political leaders from both parties. He see-sawed between condemning the racist views expressed by many of the “Unite the Right” protesters, and casting his lot with their complaints over the removal of the Lee statue and blaming counterprotesters for some of the violence.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows 54 percent of voters believe that statues of Confederate leaders should remain standing, while only 22 percent believe they should be taken down. Nearly a quarter, 24 percent, have no opinion.

But on the subject of race relations, Trump scores far worse than his recent predecessors. Sixteen percent of voters say relations got better under President George W. Bush — the same percentage who say they have gotten better under Trump. But only 16 percent say they got worse under Bush, far fewer than Trump’s 55 percent.

Voters are split on whether race relations got better or worse under President Barack Obama: 37 percent say they got better, 37 percent say they got worse and 17 percent say they remained about the same.

Trump’s approval rating in the new survey is unchanged from last week: 43 percent approve of his performance and 52 percent disapprove. And Morning Consult managing director suggested Trump has done little to bridge the racial gap in perceptions of how he is handling his job.

“President Trump continues to struggle with black voters one year following the Charlottesville attack,” said Sinclair. “Seventy-three percent of black voters disapproved of the president in August 2017, compared to 78 percent who disapprove today. Among white voters, 53 percent disapproved in August 2017, compared to 47 percent who disapprove today.”

Democrats lead the 2018 generic congressional ballot by 6 percentage points, 42 percent to 36 percent. Last week, the party held a 7-point lead on the generic ballot.